Any chance someone on here could pop the cover on the nell mech and Let me have a look how it’s suppose to go together. Have Nell (log and teeth under it). The gear assembly that attaches to the motor and the saw blade with the pulley (loose but it’s there).

How about the inital boot? the DMD board is basically its own CPU board. when you boot the game, you should see display version 1.3 something. If that's not happening, it's something on you display driver board. Either poor connection or bad power but you have to get the display information before anything else then the game itself boots and can scramble the display.

Double check the 5v going into the board itself. that connector is notorious for having problems.